Explaining Gendered Wartime Violence: Rohingya Ethnic Cleansing

The United Nations described Rohingyas as ‘amongst the most persecuted minority groups in the world.’ News reports and refugee testimonies have confirmed that the plight of Muslims in Rakhine State of Myanmar is atrocious. The humanitarian crisis taking place in the Rakhine state has led to the death of an appalling number of Rohingya’s Muslims. It has been reported, that nearly 500,000 people have fled destruction of their livelihood and, are currently living in refugee camps in Bangladesh. The UN reports suggest that Rohingyas have faced “killings, torture, rape and arson”, by Burmese troops. It has been categorised as a ‘textbook case of ethnic cleansing’ of Muslims in Myanmar.

Rohingya Muslims represent the largest percentage of Muslims in Myanmar, and the majority lived in Rakhine state before the violence broke out. Myanmar is predominantly a Buddhist country which has for decades denied Muslims citizenship, they have been subjected to brutal government and police violence, and their identity has been decreased to that of an ‘illegal immigrant.’ On the 25th of August, 2017 the Rohingya militant army launched a deadly attack on the Muslims which has culminated into a systematic case of ethnic violence, turning into ethnic cleansing. They have slowly, but successfully forced majority of the Muslims to flee the country, resulting in one of the deadliest case of violence in the 21st century.

Within this Muslim minority exists another kind of minority, ‘Rohingya Women’ who have been subjected to sexual violence and rape by the army militants. It has been reported that tens of thousands of young girls and women of the Muslim community have been sexually violated and raped by the army militants In the report prepared for the UN Commission on Human Rights, Gay J. McDougall defined wartime rape as “a deliberate and strategic decision on the part of combatants to intimidate and destroy ‘the enemy’ as a whole by raping and enslaving women who are identified as members of the opposition group.” However, wartime rape is not a new phenomenon. Many historical and anthropological researchers have provided us with evidence that rape during war can be traced back to earlier wars. It was reported that during the Second World War, the city of Berlin witnessed extremely high levels of rape and sexual violence against women by the Soviet forces. It has been estimated that around 900,000 women were raped and violated during the war.The infamous ‘Rape of Nanking’ is another case where Japanese soldiers reportedly raped an estimated 20,000 to 80,000 women in the city of Nanjing, China in 1937.

According to the Human Rights Watch report titled ‘All of My Body was in Pain: Sexual Violence against Rohingya Women and Girls in Burma’, women and girls are brutally being raped and sexually violated, humiliated, beaten up and even killed by the Burmese militants. They also suffer from the ordeal of seeing their children, parents or partners being murdered in front of them. The Burmese militant army is using systematic rape as a weapon of war in the massacre of the Rohingyas – using women to be the easy target, and thereby making the Rohingya crisis a grave gender concern. Priyanka Motaparthy, a senior researcher in the Emergencies division of the Human Rights Watch, mentions in a Human Rights Watch report, “These horrific attacks on Rohingya women and girls by security forces add a new and brutal chapter to the Burmese military’s long and sickening history of sexual violence against women.”

It is believed that sexual violence and rape is systematically used against women during wartime due multiple reasons. In addition to women being ‘easy targets’, they are subjected to this ordeal in order to break down the reproductive cycle of an ethnicity, which thereby can result in eliminating that ethnic population altogether. It is also used to decrease or break down the morale of their enemy population, who are responsible for securing their women and girls, thus weakening their opponents. Therefore, the connecting factor between ‘gender based violence’ and ‘wartime’ are the underlying patriarchal values that persists in societies and dictates their culture. Within this structure, it is often assumed that a woman’s honor resides in her reproductive system, violating her reproductive system is seen as a way of stripping her honor, subjecting her to humiliation and furthermore gaining ‘power.’ It is a way of systematically destroying a community as a whole.

This is not the first time the world is witnessing gender based violence. However, the silence on the issue and lack of action by international authorities such as the United Nations is alarming. Urgent and crucial steps need to be taken by the Burmese government along with other International Organizations to bring relief to these women and girls. There is also an urgent need to implement stringent policies and necessary actions must be taken against people who use of sexual violence during wartime. However, the most urgent need of the hour is to overthrow patriarchal values from societies all across the world. Even though this is optimistic, it is important to instill a sense of equality between men and women, which in turn could help in eliminating the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war.

Devika Khandelwal, a Masters in International Relations from King’s College London. I am currently working in the non-governmental sector, primarily focusing on fundraising and management. I am staunch supporter to women and children rights, and work at NGOs on weekends to help bring about change in their lives in a small yet positive way.

Indo-Pacific region and elections in New Caledonia

The results of the May 12, 2019 parliamentary
elections in New Caledonia reflect a lingering political split in this French
territory, comprising dozens of islands in the South Pacific. French loyalists
won 28 seats in the 54-strong local legislature, just two seats more than the
advocates of the region’s greater autonomy and even complete independence
from Paris.

The local society is divided along political and
geographical lines. The indigenous Melanesians (Kanaks) have been in the
minority since 1969, and currently account for 39 percent of the islands’
population. They make up a 70-percent majority in two of the three provinces of
the archipelago (the Northern Province and the Province of Loiote), and a
26-percent minority in the Southern Province, where pro-French sentiment is
strong.

Elections in New Caledonia
are more than just a local development and are a source of serious concern for
both France
and Australia.

France’s position. New
Caledonia is France’s most faraway colony (17,000 km). The New Caledonians may hold two more referendums on
independence before 2022 in keeping with the terms of the Noumea
agreement of 1998, which allows a second vote if the first one leaves the
proponents of independence in a minority. During the first plebiscite held on
November 4, 2018, 57 percent of New Caledonians voted in favor of preserving
the archipelago’s status as an overseas French territory.
If New Caledonia gains broad autonomy,
let alone independence, from France, this would change the strategic security
pattern in the region, giving a boost to secessionist sentiments in US and
European overseas territories (French Polynesia, Reunion, Wallis and
Futuna with an exclusive economic zone of 226,000 sq. km.), and seriously
impairing Paris’ influence in the region.

The Indo-Pacific region (IPR) is viewed by France as
the Paris-New Delhi-Canberra-Noumea axis. (Noumea
is the capital of New Caledonia).

By maintaining its sway over New Caledonia, France
will retain its membership of the club of world powers, its continued role in
the IPR and participation in theQuadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad)
between the United States, Japan, Australia and India,
designed to check China’s attempts to secure for itself a place in the Indo-Pacific
region.

Paris fears that an
autonomous or fully independent New Caledonia would seek financial assistance
from Beijing in exchange for allowing Chinese companies access to the archipelago.

New Caledonia is also a mainstay of French military
presence in the Pacific, a platform for scientific research and a source of
strategic resources, such as chromium, cobalt, manganese, gold,
copper, lead, and nickel. The archipelago boasts the world’s fifth largest
reserves of nickel, whose exports are projected to reach 4 million tons in
2021.

Therefore, Paris is trying, first and foremost, to
minimize the consequences of the current divisions within the local pro-French
political parties – Calédonie Ensemble, Le Repubilcans Calédoniens, etc. And
with good reason too, because even despite their defeat in the May 12 vote, the
secessionist forces have been gaining strength increasing their presence in the
local parliament from 18 to 25 seats in the decade between 2004 and 2014, and,
according to the results of the May 12 elections, bringing their membership to
26.

The indigenous Kanak population is getting politically
active too, showing a hefty 81 percent turnout in the November 4, 2018
independence referendum, which exceeds by more than twice the 40 percent voter
turnout in national elections in France proper. Moreover, a meagre 3 percent of
ethnic Kanaks voted for loyalists. By 2022, the number of Kanak voters is
expected to rise even further, while that of French voters will remain at the
present level.

Australia’s position. In the southwest, New Caledonia borders on the
exclusive economic zone of Australia, with which it shares the region’s
potential hydrocarbon reserves. In the southeast, it borders on the island
state of Fiji, which is busy building up ties with China.

Canberra worries about the impact that the
developments in New Caledonia could have on the secessionist movements on the
Island of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea and West Papua (a province of
Indonesia), all the more so given the threat of Islamism and illegal migration.
Canberra also prioritizes cooperation with Indonesia in the field of economics,
science, culture, defense, and in tackling the consequences of natural
disasters.

An uncontrolled process of
sovereignty declarations in the South Pacific region threatens to destabilize
the regional security system Canberra has been building there for quite some
time now. New Caledonia’s potential independence would jeopardize an existing
defense agreement between Australia and France, which provides the Australian
Navy with access to French military bases in the archipelago.

Differed as they are on the format of cooperation with
China, the Australian government and the opposition still recognize the need
for building up trust between the two countries, and, above all, for
promoting closer economic ties with Beijing.

Here, however, Canberra’s vision about future of the
IPR differs in many respects from Paris’. Australia is careful to avoid a
head-on clash with China in the region, preferring instead to seek a balance of
interests, mindful of the positions of all regional actors, especially
international associations, such as the Quad, FRANZ, ANZUS, APEC, Pacific
Islands Forum, etc.

France, for its part, sticks to a more confrontational
tactic as it tries to maintain its status as a Pacific power. However, the
financial assistance that the states of Oceania are getting from Australia
($1.3 billion) is way bigger that what is provided by France ($100 mln.). (2)

Simultaneously, Canberra would like to see a rise in
the humanitarian aspect of the French policies in Oceania.

Related

Indo-China integration meets Cambodia’s interests

Cambodia, which is located between Thailand and Vietnam and has a
440-kilometer coastal zone which is separated from the rest of the country by a
mountain ridge, is in need of a “third
neighbor” in order to survive economically and politically, and for improving
its export opportunities.

Pnomh Penh’s hopes for
partnership with the United States fell through. After
Washington passed the Cambodia Democracy Act in 2018 in support of the
Cambodian opposition, it became clear that the US was ready to use legal
instruments against Pnomh Penh to pursue its interests
in the region.

At present, Cambodia’s
“third neighbor” is China. Cambodia is doomed to participate in the
Chinese infrastructure project “One Belt, One Road” because otherwise it will
not get access to South East Asia markets. The extent to which the Cambodian
economy is sensitive to market changes was demonstrated by Italy, which
initiated extra duties on Cambodian rice imports into the EU. Rice is the main
item of Cambodian food exports. Rome thereby secured a review of the
Cambodia-EU “Everything Except Weapons” trade scheme.

In the course of a visit to Beijing in January 2019 by Prime
Minister of Cambodia Hun Sen, the Chinese side promised to allocate $ 588
million as aid for Cambodia by 2021, to increase rice imports to 400 thousand
tons and boost bilateral trade volume to $
10 billion by 2023 . This is designed to ensure the economic survival of
Cambodia.

In foreign policy, Cambodia avoids aggravating relations with its
neighbors lest there appear conflicts detrimental to the weak Cambodian
economy, and underscores the importance of maintaining peace in the
Asia-Pacific Region.

Phnom Penh is fully aware that it can improve its economic performance
only on condition it maintains a long period of peace and strict neutrality.
Cambodia is among the world’s fastest growing economies
(7.5% in 2018). If the country is to preserve and build on the current pace of
development, it will have to boost exports of manufactured goods (80% in the
structure of exports) and rice, and should encourage tourism and attract
foreign investment.

Phnom Penh is worried about two major problems in Asia – the North
Korean issue and territorial disputes in the South China Sea as part of a
greater US-China conflict.

Pnomh Penh sees the essence of the North Korean issue in that Cambodia
traditionally maintains close economic and political ties with both Koreas.
Cambodia and North Korea form a united front at international forums on the
issue of human rights, North Korean military experts have assisted Cambodia
with the development of a demining service, and North Korea has invested $ 24
million in the country’s tourism industry.

South Korea is the second largest investor for Cambodia after China. By
2018, the total volume of South Korean investments
in Cambodia had reached $ 4.56 billion. For Pnomh Penh, Seoul is an influential
economic player and cooperation with it contributes to the diversification of
the Cambodian economy.

South Korean capital helps Phnom Penh to dilute the financial presence
of Chinese investors in the Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone – the country’s
main economic gateway. For Cambodia, the conflict between the two Koreas is
fraught with significant financial and political losses.

In the opinion of Pnomh Penh, diplomatic clashes between the United
States and China over territorial disputes in the South China Sea may
exacerbate Cambodian-Vietnamese relations. Although relations between Cambodia
and Vietnam have always been tarnished by conflict, Phnom Penh, following
a policy of strict neutrality, has been promoting broader cooperation with
Hanoi in recent years.

As Vietnam, unlike China, is moving closer to Washington, Phnom Penh
does not want to find itself in a situation where he will have to make a clear
choice in favor of one of the parties to the conflict. Militarization of
Vietnam, whose territory blocks Cambodia’s access to the sea, will be ruinous
for the economy of Cambodia.

Vietnamese seaports are the final point of the Southern Economic Corridor,
which runs from Myanmar via Thailand and Cambodia to Vietnam. Phnom Penh pins
big hopes on cooperation within the framework of the Southern Economic
Corridor. An ASEAN report describes Cambodia as a perfect place for an
export-oriented economy that serves as a binding link for the regional
economy as a whole.

Given the situation, it
can be assumed that Phnom Penh’s policy over the next few years will focus on
diversifying the economy, attracting a greater number of foreign economic
partners (Japan, Australia, Russia, the EU), strengthening regional integration
within the Southern Economic Corridor and within the framework of the ASEAN,
and minimizing US-North Korean, Sino-US, and Sino-Vietnamese differences.

Related

Vietnam Fisheries Brace for EU Yellow Card Review

The tides wait for no one and each day
fisheries, particularly those closest to the shores, are over-fished and harmed
by industrialization. For emerging economies like Vietnam, the issuance of a
yellow card by the European Union caught the attention of fishers and
government officials alike, with a clear warning that the country has not been
tackling illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.

Tran VanLinh, the chairman of the Danang
Fisheries, like others, is worried about the industry’s export future. After
all, the fisheries sector is a cornerstone of the Vietnamese economy and has
contributed to an average growth rate of 7.9 percent. Nevertheless, he
understands that the yellow card offers not only a roadmap for the government
but also for all people to address long-standing conservation and
sustainability issues.

“After receiving the commission’s carding
system notice, Vietnam has tried to satisfy all the requirements imposed by the
EU. We do need to protect our sea and environment,” claims Linh.

The overall picture in the South China Sea
or East Sea as Vietnam refers to this body of water, is grim. Total fish stocks
have been depleted by 70-95 percent since the 1950s, and catch rates have
declined by 70 percent over the last 20 years. Giant clam harvesting, dredging,
and artificial island building in recent years severely damaged or destroyed
over 160 square kilometers, or about 40,000 acres, of coral reefs, which were
already declining by 16 percent per decade.

Challenges around food security and
renewable fish resources are fast becoming a hardscrabble reality for more than
just fishermen. With dwindling fisheries in the region’s coastal areas, fishing
state subsidies, overlapping EEZ claims, and mega-commercial fishing trawlers
competing in a multi-billion-dollar industry, fish are now the backbone in this
sea of troubles.

Meanwhile, Vietnam’s fisheries employ more
than 4.5 million people and the nation is ranked as the world’s fourth largest
exporter of fish commodities after China, Norway and Thailand. In 2016, the
country’s seafood products were exported to 160 countries and territories with
the three major markets of the US (20.6%), EU (17.3%), and Japan (15.7%).
Vietnam is currently the largest tra fish supplier and fourth biggest shrimp
exporter in the world.

There’s even greater pressure placed on
fishermen to meet Vietnam’s ambitious seafood sector target of earning 10
billion USD from exports this year, up 10 percent from 2018. According to the Vietnamese Association of
Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), the goal can be achieved largely from
$4.2 billion from shrimp exports, $2.3 billion from tra fish exports, and some
$3.5 billion from other seafood shipments.

Meanwhile, coastal fish stocks have become
either fully exploited or overfished. As a consequence, the South China Sea is
considered Vietnam’s vital fishing ground.

With a delegation of the EU’s Directorate
of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries expected to arrive at the end of May, Vietnam
is urgently adopting measures to convince inspectors that they have smartly
corrected their fishery conservation course.

“The Danang Fishery Department has implemented
numerous educational programs to teach fishermen about the new laws and to
train them about the EU requirements,” adds Linh, a respected industry leader.

From Hai Phong, Da Nang, LySon, Phu Quoc
and Vung Tau, more fisheries are attempting to reign in bad practices and reach
towards modernization, eliminating the destructive fishing practices which
affects fishery resources. However, more work is still required to revise their
legal framework to insure compliance with international and regional rules, to
increase the traceability of its seafood products, and to strengthen the
implementation of its conservation and management of fisheries resources.

Mr. Le Khuon, chairman of the fishery
association in An Vinh Village located in Quang Ngai Province and a former
fisherman, who has stared down an aggressive Chinese fishing vessel or two near
the Paracels, knows the hardships of fishing. “Of course the yellow card does
impact on our local fishermen since we export sea cucumbers to the EU.”

Along with others in the area, Ly Son
fishermen recognize the importance of marine protected areas since the coastal
areas are overfished. “It’s a hard life and I have lost friends to the sea,”
claims 42 year-old Tran Phuc Linh, who has also been harassed by the Chinese
since he often fishes near disputed historic fishing grounds in the Paracel
Islands.

In fact, the fishing incidents continue in
the Spratlys, where China’s mega steel hulled vessels regularly intimidate
Vietnam’s colorful wooden trawlers. Just two months ago, a fishing trawler
moored at Da Loiis land, in the Paracel archipelago was chased by a Chinese
Maritime Surveillance vessel before it crashed upon the rocks and sunk without
loss of life to crew.

According to analyst and consultant,
Carlyle A. Thayer, “the Chinese government, as a matter of policy, employs it
commercial fishing fleet as a third arm of its maritime forces after the
regular navy and civilian maritime enforcement agencies, now grouped into a
national Coast Guard.”

Linh and his wife do not want their two teenage sons to make their living as fishermen. They know the perils at sea from the seasonal typhoons and the threats associated with patrol and interdiction of ships violating mutually agreed upon fishing restrictions.

Sent by their governments to find food for
their people, fishers find themselves on the front lines of this new ecological
battle. These fishing sentinels and their trawlers are fighting the maritime
disputes between China and its neighbors.

This fishing competition for available
fish has resulted in increased number of fishing vessel conflicts. These
hostile sea encounters have been witnessed in Indonesia waters whereat least 23
fishing boast from Vietnam and Malaysia have been accused of poaching in that
nation’s waters.

As a result, Indonesia’s fisheries
minister, Susi Pudijastuti, ordered the dynamiting of these boats and over 170
fishing vessels have been sunk in their waters over the past several years. The
increasing number of fishing incidents reflects not only deeply different
interpretations and application of the law of the sea, but a fundamental
conflict of interest between coastal states and maritime powers.

Even with these threatening clouds on the
horizon, some fisheries are going about responsibly reigning in illegal
fishing. In Da Nang, its 509 fishing trawlers (all longer than 15 metres) have
installed with GPS. This includes the seven steel hulled vessels subsidized by
the government’s generous loan program.

The mandatory installation of the GPS offers
more assurance in the identification of catch origins and it also helps that
more fishermen are also completing and submitting the required fishing diary or
logbook.

Meanwhile, the government insists that
statistics on fishing vessels, fishing logs and fishing yields of each
commercial trawler are now part of a Vietnam Fish Base, a nationwide fishery
software database in accordance with the law.

Within the disputed territory, there are
over 1.9 billion people, seventy-five percent of them living within one hundred
kilometers of the coast. Nearly eighty-five percent of the world’s fishers are
concentrated in Asia, particularly in the South China Sea, according to the
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Subsequently, fishing remains a
politically sensitive and emotionally charged national security issue for all
claimant nations. This ocean plundering presents the region with a looming food
crisis. Any effort to balance the economic benefits with the security context
within the South China Sea will require a coordinated, multi-level response
from scientists, historically engaged in collaborative research and already
addressing issues of sustained productivity and environmental security in the
region.

It’s a prevailing view that the collapse
of fisheries is the major driver of competition for marine resources. This
continues to result in a lack of respect among claimants for mutually
agreed-upon fishery restrictions within 12 nautical miles of outposts and in
the recognition of management area within 200 nautical miles of coastline. Last
year 86 Vietnamese fishing boats were destroyed by Indonesia for illegally
catching fish in its waters.

However, senior Vietnamese officials are
confident that these violations are now being eliminated, if not sharply
reduced.

“ Because local governments and relevant
agencies such as the Coastguard, and Border guard are conducting more
surveillance and enacting stern measures in monitoring and investigating;
fishing violations are reduced,” claims Nguyen Manh Dong, Director General of
the Department of Maritime Affairs, and National Boundary Commission.

He’s quick to add that while the EU’s
requirements have been fulfilled including port control, some cases still
happen, particularly with Indonesia.

To offer additional counter-balance,
Vietnam’s Fisheries Resources Surveillance Department has stated that it is
working to raise awareness of maritime boundaries and international maritime
laws among its fishermen, apart from conducting frequent patrols to prevent
potential violations

The complicated nature of the Vietnam’s
East Sea or the South China Sea (SCS) disputes, makes short term resolution of
fishing disputes difficult. More parties, believe that proper management of
these disputes to insure stability
becomes a priority.

For example, Binh Dinh province is
adopting necessary measures to remove the “yellow card” status. All local
fishing boats are required to obtain certificates of registration, inviting
local authorities to review design documents, supervise the building,
improvement and repairing of fishing vessels.

Among policy shapers, and marine
scientists, there’s a general consensus that the best approach for managing SCS
disputes and addressing IUU issues is to set aside the sovereignty disputes and
jointly develop and manage the natural resources, such as fisheries. While
advancing fisheries cooperation in the SCS has been increasingly recognized as
a political, ecological, socio-economic and security imperative, a crucial
question remains unanswered. What objective can be achieved through fisheries
cooperation in the SCS?

Marine biologists like Professor Nguyen
Chu Hoi advocate the creation of ecosystem- based fishery zones covering reefs
that are vital to regional fish stocks, especially in the Spratlys and
Paracels. This action requires the adoption of an urgent cooperative marine
management system, regardless of the location of their territorial and maritime
claims.

While the growing demand for fish by
global markets can fray even the strongest fisher’s net, the challenge for
Vietnam is the imperative for management of its declining fisheries in order to
create long-term sustainability. The protection of the “commons” requires more
than a pass fail report card from the EU.